


Silver Bells and Cockle Shells

by gremlins-came-and-got-me (Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alcoholic Sheriff, Alcoholism, Angst, Dead Claudia Stilinski, Dead Hales, Depression, Derek and Stiles are the Same Age, Epileptic Erica Reyes, Fear, Gen, Mistreatment of a child, Plague, Poor Boyd's Family, Scott is a Good Friend, The Secret Garden AU, The Stilinski Family are Lords, They are 11, Thunderstorms, background racism, poor Boyd, the sheriff's name is John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28054614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark/pseuds/gremlins-came-and-got-me
Summary: Derek, recently orphaned, is sent to live with his mother’s best friend’s husband.His surrogate uncle is emotionally unavailable, leaving Derek to his own devices much of the time. As any child would, Derek explores his surroundings and discovers an unkempt garden. He also discovers his uncle’s son, hiding away from the world and claiming to be ill with all manner of illnesses.Somehow, Derek has to reconcile his uncle and cousin without either of them being particularly amendable. Good thing his middle name is Stubborn.
Relationships: Derek Hale & Scott McCall, Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Silver Bells and Cockle Shells

**Author's Note:**

> This is possibly the most self-indulgent piece I've written to date (not that a lot of my other stories aren't self-indulgent but this one has a certain appeal to me).
> 
> Written during Nanwrimo 2020 (among other things, hence why it's not 50K words).

~ * ~

When the illness swept through their town, Derek was ten. He did not understand why he had been locked up in a room and left alone while the house fell silent but for a few distinct wails.

Long after he had become hungry and thirsty, Derek played quietly, sitting in his nursery and wondering when his sisters, one older and one younger, and uncle, a few years older than him, would return and they could go to breakfast. Or perhaps lunch with how late the day had gotten.

Alas, none returned. And in fact, Derek did not realize it, but he had been forgotten.

The plague had taken his mother first and then his sisters all in one fell swoop. His uncle held out longest but could not fight off the sudden fever, chills, and other unpleasantness of the plague.

Derek had been so thoroughly forgotten that when a doctor came to assess the bodies for disposal, he happened into the nursery and nearly jumped out of his skin when Derek stood up from a pile of play-clothes and asked plaintively, “Where is breakfast? Where is Mama? I want Peter.”

At first, the doctor took Derek to his house where his seven children regarded him as an oddity and refused to come close to him. The doctor’s wife berated him for potentially bringing a plague-ridden pest to their door. For near on seven months, Derek was shuttled from one house to another, each of the occupants bemoaning his existence. Derek took on a bitter demeanor, demanded nothing, and simply waited.

If the plague did not take him, then surely he would be placed into an orphanage.

However, since the orphanage had also fallen victim to illness, Derek continued his circuit of the homes of his town until he ended up back at the doctor’s. And the doctor’s wife began shouting again. Faced with the choice of his wife leaving or finding another town to care for the child, well, the doctor located a letter written to Talia Hale’s best friend, Claudia Stilinski, packed the child a lunch, and sent him to live with the Stilinskis.

Unbeknownst to anyone outside of the lands governed by Lord Stilinski, Claudia Stilinski had passed some three years prior. Not from the plague, oh no. Claudia had suffered a different ailment than had Derek’s family, and her husband, John Stilinski, had not come through his grief yet.

Derek arrived on the Stilinski’s door, still a child, but less of one than had demanded the doctor provide him with the breakfast his dead family couldn’t. John took one look at him, muttered, “Not again,” and disappeared. Fortunately, he left the door open and his housekeeper, a kind woman named Melissa, allowed Derek into the house.

She showed him to a room, told him he could go anywhere he pleased except for the south wing, and then returned to her duties.

Derek was a stubborn boy, a trait inherited from his father, who was also dead, but no one knew this at the time because he had died in a different town and been buried with their dead, and determined to survive despite or in spite of the circumstances that had led him to be shunted from one caregiver to another.

Because Uncle John rejected him, most of the Stilinski household didn’t dare approach Derek, and as he had free reign of much of the admittedly large house, Derek spent his days exploring.

It was an existence he could survive.

He found several rooms shut up and dust filled. Not even the servants came here, and Derek did not understand. There was plush furniture left to stand guard in sitting rooms of past days, detailed and beautiful tapestries hung upon the walls, firewood stacked neatly, just ready to be laid in the fireplace and lit.

His most favorite room, and dustiest of all, was the library. Books in rows, stacked neatly to the ceiling. Ladders that slid along rails so that no corner was unreachable, and many nooks tucked away in places hard to see at first meant that even when Melissa or one of the other servants came looking for him, Derek could remain hidden, curled up with a book or six, reading away the long, dreary winter days.

In return for the ignorance, of both him and the library, he spent some days dusting and polishing until things shone, and the library became a homey sort of place.

He never saw his Uncle John. As Lord of the lands, he was always out and about placating the peoples or solving petty issues. It meant that the house was empty aside from Derek’s aunt, whom he never saw as well, and the few servants John employed to run his household in his stead.

And so another month passed.

Derek spent all of his eleventh birthday curled up under the large desk in the center of the room, a sweet nicked from the kitchen as his only company as he read and re-read a favorite book of his.

No one even mentioned the fact that he’d grown another year and was now lanky and uncoordinated. And no one admonished him from hiding away in the library.

And when he took to wandering the halls, legs aching from his growth spurt, and that of more still to come, no one stopped him.

He always obeyed the rules of staying away from the south wing, but he couldn’t help but hear the fuss made at night.

Always at 1:00 or 2:00 gone in the morning, long before the sun could even think of rising, a great wailing would rattle the halls, closest to the south wing, and several servants would scurry, carrying pots of steaming water, trays of sweets, soaps, tinctures, and all manner of odd things. Derek would hide, pressed close to the wall, as still as the figures woven into the tapestries, and watch.

No one noticed him, probably because he wasn’t wailing as if a ghost had been set loose on him.

The wails would only ebb after an hour or so, and then Derek would hurry back to his room and duck under his covers while he tried to think of things that would make noise like that.

He thought perhaps it was his aunt, Claudia, ill with despair and worry of her husband always gone or her friend so close they claimed to be bosom sisters, Derek’s mother, but there was a heavy grief over the house, and whenever Derek tried to ask Melissa about his aunt, she always hushed him harshly and sent him away with a bit of bread and cheese.

Every night now, Derek trawled the halls, listening for that wailing. Even after his legs stopped hurting in February, he still walked around and around until the wailing commenced.

It was a fascinating, if annoying, happening, and Derek was determined to get the bottom of the matter. But no matter whom he asked, no one ever told him anything. There were a few snaps that meant Derek was in the way and quickly turning into more of a nuisance than whatever was wailing, so he spent his days in the library again, looking for a book that would divulge answers.

So far, none had, but at least when he got bored of looking, he could read or nap in one of the nooks.

Then, the weather turned nicer, and he was sent out of doors when he became underfoot.

Discouraged and disgusted, Derek wandered the grounds, like he wandered the halls, sticking close to the walls, and listening for the wailing.

It never happened during the day, and Derek couldn’t fathom why.

He had ruled out ghosts and spirits as none of the servants gossiped about that. Instead, when he listened closely, he could hear rumors of a child. Whenever Melissa caught the others tittering among themselves, she scattered them and then sent Derek outside.

In borrowed clothes, a jumper too large, boots too small, not enough layers at the start and end of the day but too many for the middle, Derek wandered the perimeter of the building. He used a stick dipped in mud to mark his progress, and was inordinately pleased when he managed to go all the way around twice in one day before Melissa called him for supper.

That night, he waited until she’d given him a plate of mashed potatoes covered with a single dollop of fresh cream before he asked about the building’s history. He already knew it was a lord’s house and that his uncle was Lord Stilinski, but he knew nothing of when it was built nor how many people lived here. He’d tried counting servants once, but realized that he had counted a pair of wood cutters near on ten times apiece because they had discovered what he was doing and had begun wearing disguises whenever he happened upon them.

Melissa shook her head. “Haven’t got the time, love. I’m sure there’s books in the library you can read.” She frowned at him. “You can read, can’t you?”

Affronted, Derek expressed his outrage. Melissa laughed at him.

“Of course you can, clever boy. Off you go then.” She patted his head and sent him on his way.

Derek waited until he had turned the corner before he stuck his tongue out at her. He declined to stick his fingers in his ears and waggle them as well. No use in drawing too much attention to himself as of yet.

Instead, he took another corner and came to the south wing, blocked by a closed door. No one was guarding the door, but Derek still looked around before he reached out his finger and stroked the handle.

When no one jumped out at him, he tried it. Locked.

Drat.

Derek sneaked away before someone could happen by. He didn’t want to go to the library like Melissa had said. Instead, even though it was cloudy, the remnants of winter clinging to the ground and biting at his cheeks with the brisk wind, he went outside.

He started left and walked until he was tired.

He’d forgotten his coat, and the slower he moved, the more tired he became. He should turn back and go in, but he was stubborn and didn’t want to admit when he was wrong, even if it was to himself, so he pressed on. By the time he made it halfway, he was shivering, thoroughly done with the wind going right through his bones. He leaned against a wall, seeking a little shelter.

On the ground in front of him, a robin hopped, searching for worms in the mostly thawed ground.

“You shan’t find them, I’m afraid,” Derek called to it.

The robin looked at him as if it understood, and then it flew up and over his head, stopping for a moment on the top of the wall before it disappeared over.

Derek watched it go. He knew that the wall was larger than the house, and here it was lower too. He’d wondered what was behind it, but even searching in the library turned up nothing. He thought to ask Melissa, and then recalled that she was likely just to tell him to look in the library.

Frustrated, Derek stamped his foot. Why could the robin go over the wall but not him?

Why did it get to see all of the grounds while he was stuck here, trying to find warmth in the ivy growing over the wall?

Wait, the ivy! Derek grabbed a handful and tugged. It seemed secure enough. He grabbed another handful and set a foot against the wall. He tested the ivy again, found it still secure, and began trying to climb, using the ivy as handholds while his boots scrabbled over the bricks of the wall, searching for purchase.

He made it up about four feet before the ivy snapped and he fell onto his bottom into an icy puddle of mud.

Tears welled up in his eyes. Frustration, yes, but also pain. He wanted nothing more than for his mother to kneel down next to him and offer him the comfort he hadn’t had since his family’s deaths.

He missed his sisters and uncle so keenly that it felt as if his heart would burst.

Derek wailed suddenly, crying for all the months that he hadn’t, that he’d been shunted from one person to another, none of them stopping to see if he needed more than clothes and food.

He hadn’t been loved in a very long time indeed, and it just made him feel sorrier for himself.

He cried himself out and then had to climb to his feet and stumble back to the door, nearly frozen from the wind, muddy, and with a face in need of washing.

Melissa tutted when she saw him. “You’ll catch your death of cold,” she admonished him as she drew him a warm bath. She handed him soap and a change of clothes and made to bustle away.

“Have you any children, Miss Melissa?” Derek asked before she could leave.

She paused, studying him with a stern eye. “I do,” she confirmed. “Five of them.”

“Are any my age?” he gave her his most hopeful look, and she must have taken pity on him because she nodded.

“Yes, a boy. Scott. I’ll bring him with me on the morrow. You can play quietly in the library or go outside.”

Derek thanked her and then started stripping for his bath. He behind was definitely bruised and tender but the water was warm and soothing, and Derek found he didn’t mind being hurt, not when he could have a playmate tomorrow.

~ * ~

After his bath, he was too excited to eat properly and in too much pain as well.

Melissa tutted at him again and took him to see the nurse-doctor, Alan.

Derek had seen Alan many a night, carrying tinctures and trays to the south wing. As soon as he could, Derek planned to ask him about the wailing.

He got no chance. Alan examined his bruises, declared them well on their way to being healed, gave him a drink for the pain, and sent him on his way, all in the span of five minutes.

Derek huffed, put out that he hadn’t even gotten to say anything nor ask his questions.

He was escorted back to his room by one of the servants who then measured out a dose of the drink and gave it to him.

It tasted awful and Derek tried to spit it out.

“If you want sleep without pain, you’ll drink it right down,” the lady said. “Now hush. Go to sleep.”

Derek stuck out his tongue, crossing his eyes to stare at it. It didn’t look any different for the disgusting taste of the medicine.

“Will I wake up healed?” he asked.

“Not likely. It will probably be a fortnight before you feel right as rain.”

“Will I have to drink that every night?”

“As long as you have pain, yes.”

“How dreadful. Good night.” Derek lied down, and the lady took the candle with her when she left.

Derek felt drowsy almost immediately. Must be the medicine. He didn’t like it at all.

He would speak to Melissa about it in the morning. Right now, he was too tired.

His eyes closed and stayed closed.

~ * ~

Derek woke in the middle of the night both in pain from his behind and thirsty from the icky medicine.

He stumbled up, searching for a candle until he remembered the servant had taken it with her. He knew the halls well enough. He could find his way to the washroom for some water and back again.

Derek got his water and was on his way to his room again when the wailing began. It sounded so near that he was nearly startled out of his skin.

Servants were running around again, and there was Alan with the tincture that Derek recognized as the horrible medicine.

No wonder the wailer was wailing if that was what was coming to them.

Derek fell in line behind the lady who had taken his candle. She was carrying linens too tall for her to see around. Why anyone needed that many bed sheets was beyond Derek.

He followed her into the south wing and then ducked into a dark doorway. He could wait until things quieted down before exploring. If he could manage it, he might even hide until daylight so he could see better.

Now that he was actually in the south wing, he could hear that the wailing wasn’t just one long continuous cry. It was undulating, dispersed with sobs and choked words.

And it wasn’t a mystery anymore. Derek had heard that same cry before. It was the cry of a grieving boy.

Suddenly angry because this boy only wailed at night when everyone needed rest, Derek slipped down the hall until he came to a room where all the servants were gathered. There, in the middle of a giant bed, lying on his back and crying to the ceiling was a boy that reminded Derek very strongly of his Aunt Claudia though he had only seen paintings of his aunt.

“Oh, it’s broken!” the boy was crying. He twisted one way and then another, tears and snot making his face shine in the candlelight.

The lady with the linens began gently removing all of the bedclothes, and Derek saw they were soaked through.

“Now, dear, that’s quite enough of that. You’ll hurt yourself more if you keep at it,” she said soothingly. This only made the boy cry harder.

“I’ve already hurt myself! I can’t even walk anymore, I’ve hurt myself so badly!”

How had he done that, Derek wondered. He didn’t seem to leave his bed. Or if he did, he stayed in the south wing.

“This should help you sleep,” Alan said, pouring a dose of the bad medicine. It was a bigger dose than Derek had been given.

“Oh no,” the boy wailed. “No! I shan’t! You can’t give me that! It makes the dreams come!”

“No it doesn’t,” Alan said, patiently. “Hold him down.”

The three other servants grabbed a part of the boy as he began thrashing.

“No!”

Alan leaned over him, pinched his nose, and when his mouth opened for a gasping breath, he poured the medicine in.

The boy stopped moving immediately. A few moments later, he relaxed in the servants’ grasp and they stepped back.

They all waited until it was obvious the boy was asleep.

“I think that was the quickest yet,” Alan said. He shook the bottle. “Not much left. Is there really nothing else we can do?”

The servants shook their heads.

“He’s not injured, you’ve examined him yourself,” the lady said.

Another added, “He’s still grieving. It’s been over three years. He should be fine.”

The last said, “It’s that father of his. If he would get his head out of his ass and see that he still has a son, then…” he trailed off like he’d run out of words. “I much rather the Hale brat,” he finally said after a lengthy silence. “At least he doesn’t lie about claiming to be an invalid because of his grief.”

“No,” Alan agreed. “Instead, he climbs walls and nearly breaks his tailbone. I had to give him some of the medicine because he was in too much pain to sleep.”

“He thinks it just as vile as Mieczysław,” the lady said. “Perhaps there is another medicine you can give the Hale brat instead of using this one.”

“I shall see,” Alan said. He examined the bottle. “How much of a dose did you give him?”

“Only half. He’s so little, I didn’t want to risk overdosing him.”

“Very well. I shall check in on him before retiring.” Alan studied the boy once more before turning to the door. “Summon me if he wakes.”

Derek waited until all the servants were gone before he slipped out the door and raced back to his own room. He was barely under the covers with his breathing back to normal when Alan poked his head in. He felt his forehead, lifted his eyelid, and then left.

Derek curled up under his blankets, put his head under his pillow, and then cried because he knew the servants didn’t like him, but to be called a brat, and not even his name, just his last name hurt in a way he was entirely unused to feeling, even after months of not being wanted.

Eventually he cried himself to sleep.

~ * ~

Derek woke to a bright, sunny day. He went in search of breakfast and found Melissa tucking a few sandwiches into a kerchief while a boy with her serious eyes watched her.

“Derek,” Melissa said, “this is my son, Scott.”

Scott was indeed Derek’s age. He was taller though, hair unruly even as Melissa swiped a spit-slicked finger over a curl. He had a kind smile, Derek thought. He wouldn’t mind playing with Scott at all.

And maybe he would finally have someone who liked him here.

“Thanks, Mother,” Scott said when Melissa handed him the kerchief.

“It’s a lovely day outside. Why don’t you go play there?” Melissa suggested, handing Derek a slice of toast spread with just a bit of butter and jam. “Don’t injure yourself more, Mister.”

Scott raised an eyebrow, and Derek ducked his head, a little embarrassed to have injured himself in such an undignified manner.

He vowed not to tell Scott the story, certain that it would make the boy more wary toward being his friend.

“We’ll be back in for lunch,” Scott promised Melissa, and then he followed as Derek led the way to the ivy covered wall.

“There’s a robin that goes over the wall,” Derek explained as Scott examined the ivy, testing some of the strands. “I wouldn’t climb over, if I were you.”

Scott smiled. “Your injury?” He wasn’t making fun of Derek, but he still blushed hotly.

“I am not injured.” He was much better this morning, but there was still an ache in his bottom. He would pretend to be well-healed by bedtime to avoid the awful medicine. Besides, Alan had said they had precious little of it left and they needed it for Mieczysław. Why waste it on Derek, who didn’t even really need it?

He decided to tell that to Alan or the lady servant should either of them try to force it upon him tonight.

“I’m guessing you fell,” Scott said, pointing at the broken strands of ivy. “There is a door here.”

“What? Where?” Derek pressed his hands into the ivy. Indeed, there is a door. It was tall and slatted, as a garden gate. He’d thought it was all wall behind the thick ivy. If he’d known there was a door, he would have tried it first.

He found the handle and tugged on it, gently at first and then harder when it stuck fast.

“Oh, it’s locked!” he exclaimed, frustrated. He wanted to see what was behind the door so like a garden gate. Already, in his imagination, he conjured images of vast fields of flowers, far as the eye could see. Realistically, he knew that if it was a garden, it was small. It was part of the grounds, and if he could walk twice around the house in a few hours, there was not acres of land hidden inside the walls.

“We should see if the key is nearby,” Scott suggested. “It isn’t likely, but if this is Lady Stilinski’s garden, then perhaps Lord Stilinski left it out here. There is rumor that he cannot stand any reminders of his wife.”

“Does that include their son?” Derek asked, absently, already poking a stick at the overturned mud.

“Their son?” Scott repeated. “No. their son perished not long after his mother died of illness. It is why Lord Stilinski spends his time abroad.”

“They have a boy,” Derek insisted, whacking at a particularly large clump of mud. Some of it splattered back on him, but he didn’t mind. If the key was here, he would find it. It wouldn’t be like flying, but it was an escape all the same. “He cries in the night. All the servants tend to him. His name is Mee-zeke-slav.”

“Mieczysław,” Scott corrected gently. “No. I am certain that he is dead. My mother told me so.”

“Then who wails in the night?” Derek demanded, finally looking at Scott. “He keeps the whole house up. I am not allowed in the south wing where he is kept, but I saw him. He cries about being broken, but he isn’t. No one knows why he cries so.”

“How do you know that it’s Mieczysław?”

“Because they called him so. And,” Derek added, righteously, “he looks just like my aunt Claudia. How can he be anything but her son?”

“And he cries in the night?”

Derek shrugged. He threw his stick down. There was no key here. “He cries because he thinks he is broken or ill. They drug him with an awful medicine to make him sleep. He is likely asleep now because of it.”

Scott looked at the wall. They were nowhere near the south wing, but Derek imagined he was thinking of Mieczysław, all alone in his bedchambers, snuffling in his sleep the way one did after crying so hard.

“Do you know which room is his?”

“I do,” Derek confirmed. “But only on the inside. I get turned around outside. I do not know where we are closest to, only that it is not the south wing.”

“We’re behind the kitchens,” Scott said. “I’ve studied blueprints. I am going to be an architect when I am grown.”

“If you know where we are, take us to the south wing and I shall point out his room to you.”

Scott smiled brightly, throwing the kerchief over his shoulder. “Follow me.”

Derek gathered his stick again, neither sure it would come in handy nor what he would use it for should the need arise. He felt better carrying it though.

Scott traipsed quickly, his boots built better for mud than Derek’s too small boots. It was hard to keep up with Scott’s long legs too. Halfway around the building, Scott stopped, pointing at the obvious expansion of the wall.

“This should be the south wing.”

Derek counted in his head, walking along the wall. He stopped at the fourth window. “There. That is Mieczysław’s room.”

Scott handed him the kerchief and set about tapping the stones, pulling on some, shaking his head at others. “We cannot climb here,” he announced a few moments later. “There’s no good hand or footholds. We’d surely fall if we tried to climb.”

“What if we sneaked into the wing from the inside?” Derek asked.

Scott looked intrigued.

“It is kept locked during the day, but it is unlocked at night when they need to arrive and leave quickly. Ask your mother if you can spend the night with me and we shall sneak in.”

Scott shook his head. “I have to help my mother with the little ones at night. Perhaps you can sneak in yourself and speak to Mieczysław. See why he cries and if he will stop. Perhaps he misses his mother as much as you must miss your family.”

Derek nodded. “Will you come again tomorrow?”

“I shall.”

“Then I shall sneak in tonight.”

They shook on it, shared a sandwich, and then Scott took the rest of the food home for the little ones while Derek went inside to have a bite of lunch and spend the rest of the day exploring the library for a key to the hidden door.

~ * ~

Evening came and with it, the medicine. Derek protested that he was much better, that he didn’t need anything. Alan poked at his behind, and Derek tried to hide the wince. He was unsuccessful and a spoonful of the icky medicine was poured down his throat, his nose held until he swallowed.

Then, drowsy, he watched as Alan puttered around his room, tutting at the books Derek had borrowed from the library, at the stick he’d brought in and laid on his bureau. At the rocks Derek sometimes picked up now that the ground was defrosting and he could actually pluck them from the ground.

“Quite a collector,” Alan remarked. Derek meant to reply, but he blinked and woke up to a dark, empty room.

He waited for a few minutes, and when the wailing began, as usual, he crept out of bed, found the candle Alan hadn’t taken, and carried it with him to the south wing.

He slipped into the unlocked door and all the way to the fourth room where Mieczysław law thrashing about on his bed, wailing about consumption or lumps on his back. It was a little hard to understand him as he cried about some phantom illness.

“Give him another dose,” the lady servant ordered. Derek thought she might be the matron, like how Melissa ran the kitchen in the day.

“I haven’t got another,” Alan said. “I used some on the Hale boy. He was still in pain.”

“Tramp!” the lady servant spat suddenly. “Vagabond! Why have we been tasked with two good for nothing children!”

“Lady Kali,” Alan said calmly, “you would do well not to insult the progeny of our Lord.”

Lady Kali sent a glare of daggers at Mieczysław’s twisting body. “I have labored so many hours over this boy, and for what? False accusations of injuries none can prove! Why must we continue to waste our time with him? His father does not want him! Why should we?”

The boy on the bed paused in his fit. His face was wet with tears and snot. “My father?” he asked hopefully. “Has he come to say goodbye? Oh, Papa! Where are you, Papa?”

Such a change in a few seconds. Perhaps the boy was only ill because he wished for his father’s affection. Aside from his first encounter with his uncle, Derek had yet to see Lord Stilinski anywhere in the house. And he’d certainly never come to his son’s room if the mere mention of him was enough to quiet the boy.

Derek stepped into the room, sliding under Lady Kali’s arm and climbing onto the bed. He poked at Mieczysław’s shoulder. The boy turned large, luminous brown eyes upon him.

“Have you seen my papa?” he asked.

Derek shook his head. “I’ve seen the Lord but once. He told me ‘Not again,’ and left forthwith. I am sorry, but your father is not here.”

“Get up, boy,” Lady Kali hissed in Derek’s ear. “If you are caught here, we shall all be in trouble.”

“Tell me, boy,” Mieczysław said, studying Derek with an air of disdain, “why does my father not come for me?” He waved to the servants all crowding close. “They tell me nothing. They give me nasty things to drink, say it will heal me, but I am not healed when I awaken. Tell me something they will not. Where is my father?”

“I don’t know where he is,” Derek said. “He is gone much of the time. I am never told when he is here or not. I’ve seen him but the once. I do know that you ail from nothing. You cry and carry on enough to make yourself sick, but you have no real ailment.”

“But my spine! It is not straight! It is barely strong enough for me to stand at the chamber pot.”

“If it were truly not straight, you would not be sitting as you are now.”

Mieczysław seemed to think on this for a moment before he opened his mouth, no doubt to start wailing again. Derek poked him again before he could start, and puzzled, Mieczysław studied him.

“My name is Derek Hale. Our mothers were best friends. It’s why I’ve come to live here with you and your father.”

“Your mother is also dead?”

“As is the rest of my family,” Derek said, a little dispassionately. He had not truly grieved their loss but he still felt the pain. He did not wish the servants to see it too. “They all died this past year.”

“But you are so young to have lost so much!”

Derek shrugged. “I miss them,” he admitted, “but I am not going to stop living just because they are gone. And I am not wasting my time thinking of illnesses to come take me just because I can’t stand that they’re gone.”

Mieczysław closed his mouth and glared at Derek. “Insolent boy,” he spat.

“Over-dramatic layabout,” Derek returned. “If you’re quite through with your tantrums, I shall like to return to sleep now.” He made to climb off the bed, but Mieczysław grabbed his arm before he could.

“Tell me, Derek, what is it like to be healthy?”

“Tell me yourself, Mieczysław.”

“Stiles,” Mieczysław corrected.

“There’s not a thing wrong with you,” Derek continued as if the correction hadn’t occurred though he did much prefer the shorter name. It somehow suited the boy. “Everyone else fears the Lord so they indulge you and give you horrid medicine to make you sleep so that they too can sleep.”

“My spine?” Stiles said, hope in his voice. Derek thrust his candle into Alan’s and lit it.

Then he motioned for Stiles to turn over. As soon as he did, Derek drew up his nightshirt, running his finger down the knobs of Stiles’ spine. He needed a little more meat on his bones, as Melissa was fond of telling Derek too, but otherwise, his spine was perfectly straight.

“And there are no spots?” Stiles asked as soon as Derek tugged down his nightshirt and told him he was fine.

“No spots at all,” Derek confirmed.

“My legs?”

Derek tapped a knee, got a kick. “Just fine,” he declared.

My feet?”

Derek rolled his eyes. “You are perfectly healthy. Try running about the place for once instead of wailing in your bed. You may be surprised at just what you can do.”

“Oh, thank you! You shall be my nursemaid forthwith more.”

“Oh no.” Derek licked his fingers and pinched out his candle. He slipped off the bed and hurried toward the door. “I shall be no one’s nursemaid. If you truly trust me that you are healthy, you will join me tomorrow outside. If it is raining, we shall be in the library. Now, good night.”

He marched off, fully expecting Lady Kali to follow him to berate him for entering the south wing. He also expected Stiles to begin his wailing again.

It remained quiet long after he returned to his room and climbed in his own bed.

Perhaps the wailing was over?

Derek closed his eyes and sleep came quickly.

~ * ~

The morrow dawned bright but clouds quickly rolled in. Scott returned as promised, bringing with him a puppy and two kittens.

“They lost their mamas recently,” he explained. “I am caring for them lest they die without intervention.”

Derek picked up one of the kittens, an orange stripy cat that Scott called a tabby. He held it close to his chest, like Scott was doing with the other cat, taking care not to squish it too hard.

“I talked to Stiles last night,” he told Scott. “He’s supposed to meet me in the library today. If he thinks he’s healthy.”

“Who is Stiles?” Scott asked.

“Lord Stilinski’s son, Mieczysław.”

“Is he not healthy?”

“He’s perfectly healthy,” Derek insisted. “He claims his spine is crooked. It is not. He thinks he has spots. He doesn’t. His legs are weak. If he used them more often than just for the chamber pot, then they would be strong. He’s a perfectly healthy boy who has been allowed to throw a tantrum for three years.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t have been with you last night. You must have been terrified to sneak into the south wing.”

Derek shrugged. “I was fine. The servants said they’d be in trouble if I was caught. I think they mean my uncle, but he isn’t home. He is barely here. And he never looks in on his son.”

“How sad for Mieczysław,” Scott murmured. “Have you found anything else about the key?”

“I haven’t,” Derek said, glad for the change in conversation. “I looked nearly everywhere here, but I haven’t been outside since yesterday.”

“Shame. Today was supposed to be nice, but my mother says the weather changed at the last minute. She says it will rain before the night is through.”

“Is the next day nice again?”

“I do not know. And I have to look after the little ones then anyway. Perhaps I can come again next week?”

“That is good.” Derek stroked his cat’s head. It was most agreeable that Scott should continue to return as often as he could. Derek hadn’t realized how bored he was becoming always having to entertain himself.

He was good at it; there was a reason he had stayed in the nursery while the rest of his family succumbed to illness; but he was oftentimes lonely and dejected in parts. And the servants all calling him “That Hale brat” was beginning to take its toll on him. He wasn’t the one who demanded everyone pay attention to his tantrums every night.

“Do you want to keep her?” Scott nodded at the kitten asleep in Derek’s arms.

“I would,” Derek began, but he thought of the disparaging remarks he would receive. “But I had better not.” He handed her back to Scott, and he placed them back in the box he had brought them in.

“Perhaps when your uncle returns, you can ask him?”

“If he will speak to me.”

It was probably Uncle John’s dismissal of him that had led to the servants being unnecessarily rude to him.

“I’m sure. My mother says he should return from his latest trip in a few days. Perhaps you can get Mieczysław out of bed and they can reconcile. Lord Stilinski lost his wife, but his son lost his mother.”

“Thank you,” Derek said.

“For what?”

“For believing me when I told you of Stiles.”

Scott smiled. “You have a truthfulness about you, Derek Hale. That more people don’t see it is their loss. Now, shall we look around again for the key?”

They spent the rest of the morning poking into every crevice of the library. Stiles never appeared, and Derek was both disappointed and mad. How dare he demand Derek be his nursemaid and then refuse to listen to Derek’s recommendation?

He shall have strong words for him tonight.

After lunch, Scott had to leave. He let Derek cuddle the orange kitten again before he left.

It had started raining while they ate, so, thoroughly tired out from climbing on ladders and crawling under desks, Derek gathered a few books that caught his eye, and headed back to his room to curl in his bed and read by candlelight.

~ * ~

He woke suddenly in the middle of the night.

A tray had been left for him and his candle extinguished before it burned out.

He nibbled at the hard bread, straining his ears to see if Stiles’ wails were what had awakened him.

No. It was just thunder. A spring shower.

Derek placed the half-eaten bread down, stacked his books neatly, and lit his candle. He saw no reason to hide that he was going to the south wing. He wanted to know why Stiles hadn’t come to the library, and he knew it was likely that he was still awake.

They had run out of the sleep medicine. And if the storm woke Derek, he thought perhaps it woke his cousin as well.

Indeed, when he walked into Stiles’ room, the boy was sitting up. His face was tear-streaked but he wasn’t making any noise at all.

Derek set his candle on a table next to the bed and climbed up. He was small for an eleven year old, and the bed was tall. His feet dangled as he just stared at Stiles.

“Go on,” he said after a few minutes, “laugh at me.”

“Why would I laugh at you?” Derek wondered.

Stiles sniffled. “Because the storm terrifies me. Thunder always has.”

“It does sound quite loud,” Derek said. A flash of lightning illuminated the room, and Stiles tensed. Derek reached out and grabbed his hand, twisting their fingers together. The thunder boomed loud enough that Derek flinched too, while Stiles hunkered down, a quiet gasp escaping when his mouth opened.

“I can stay with you,” Derek offered. He got a frantic nod. “Why is no one with you tonight?” he asked. He blew out his candle and then crawled under the blanket with Stiles. “I would have thought there would be someone here. Instead, I saw no one.”

“I dismissed them all,” Stiles said. “You were the only one who didn’t lie or try to find a solution for a problem that wasn’t there.”

“So you do believe me that you are not an invalid. Why did you not come to the library today?”

“I haven’t used my legs in so long, not for more than a visit to the chamber pot. I did not feel sure when I stepped out of the room.” He gave another sniff that was likely because his nose was stuffed up. “I had asked them to give you a message. Did you not get one?”

“No. I spent all morning with Scott in the library and then I read in my room after lunch. I only awakened a little while ago myself.”

“Who is Scott?”

Stiles sounded jealous. Derek frowned at him.

“Scott is the son of the cook, Miss Melissa. You could have met him today too, if you’d made it to the library.”

“I don’t think I like you spending time with this Scott.”

“He’s my friend. You can’t tell me who to be friends with.”

“Why not?”

Derek glared at him. It was lost in the darkness. “Why should you get to tell me who I can and cannot be friends with? How would you like it if I did that to you?”

“You can only have one best friend,” Stiles said. “And you are my best friend. That means that I am yours.”

Derek was incensed. That was not how friends worked. Not even best friends. “No.” Derek made to get up. He would not spend one more minute with this insolent boy. Stiles grabbed at him, begging suddenly loud.

“Don’t leave me!” he cried.

Derek pried his fingers off. “I will only stay if you agree that I can have as many friends as I wish, and that you will come to the library in the morning.”

Stiles swallowed a sob, nodding almost frantically. “You can have as many friends as you wish. I don’t know how, but I’ll get to the library. Now, please, _please_ don’t leave me.”

Derek settled again. He wasn’t the least bit sleepy, but thought it best to distract Stiles from the storm. “Shall I tell you a story?” he asked. He wondered if his cousin had spent these years in his bed reading and would know far more stories than Derek.

“A story would be nice.” Stiles put his head on Derek’s shoulder. “A happy one, please.”

Derek thought for a moment and then started. “Once upon a time, there was a king who was very unhappy. He had lost his wife to a terrible accident.”

“This story doesn’t sound happy,” Stiles complained.

“Sometimes a story is happier when it starts sad,” Derek countered. When there was no response, he continued, weaving a story out of thin air and knowledge.

The king had a child whom he ignored because he was reminded of his dead wife. One day, the child had grown and the king didn’t recognize the person they had become. He wished to do things over so he found a magic user willing to give him his chance. This time around, the king was there for his child and together, they forged a bond of love so strong that the king was never sad again.

Stiles started snoring softly halfway through, but Derek found he couldn’t stop telling the story. He wanted so much for Uncle John to return, to come to his son and realize that they were both still here and needed each other.

When at last, he reached the end, he closed his eyes, thinking to rest for just a minute before returning to his room. The storm had blown itself out, and he thought Stiles would have an easier time sleeping now.

~ * ~

Sunlight woke Derek. He was unused to it shining in his eyes first thing in the morning. He sat up, stretching and yawning widely.

Next to him, thumb in his mouth, eyes still closed, was his cousin.

Oh that was right. Derek had come to him last night, had told him a story to soothe him, and had fallen asleep. He wanted to stay, to see what kind of uproar he could cause by being in the south wing, but he also did not want to be caught where he wasn’t supposed to be. He hadn’t been punished the first time he’d been “caught,” but that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t. It could be on orders of his uncle, their Lord.

He climbed off the bed, took his candle, and slipped back to his room.

He was barely under the covers, steadying his breath when the door flew open and Melissa stepped into the room.

“There you are,” she said. “You have the house in a titter, what with you being missing this morning. We thought perhaps you’d sneaked outside.” She lifted the blanket, poking at his feet. He drew them back.

“Not outside,” he said. “But I shall. It’s lovely out now, isn’t it?”

“Where were you then?” Melissa asked. “You weren’t in the library. Nor were you in the kitchen.”

“I was wandering,” Derek said. “I woke early and could not get back to sleep so I thought I would explore a little more.”

“Not in the south wing,” Melissa said.

“No,” he agreed. “Not the south wing. Why would I go there? Isn’t it off limits?”

“Indeed it is.” Melissa studied him, like she knew he was lying. Perhaps she did. She had five children of her own. She was probably very versed in their lies. “Never mind. It’s time for breakfast. Wash your face, get dressed, and join us in the kitchen. You have ten minutes.”

Derek waited until she left before he climbed off his bed, splashed some cold water on his face, and changed into an outfit he wouldn’t mind dirtying. It was sure to be muddy outside, and he wanted to go looking for the key again.

When he got to the kitchen, there were several other servants all sitting at the long table. Derek took a seat next to Melissa. She handed him a warm slice of toast.

“We shall need to construct it,” Alan was saying. “Has anyone any idea of how we do that?”

“What do they want to construct?” Derek whispered to Melissa. She hushed him.

“I can get some schematics from an engineer and have a rough estimate built by tomorrow,” one of the outside servants said. “How big of wheels are we thinking?”

Wheels? Derek knelt up on his chair and grabbed the paper in front of the man before he could be stopped. It’s a wheeled chair. For Stiles.

“Does this mean he can come outside with me?” he asked Melissa.

She took the paper and set it back on the table. “Maybe when it’s less muddy,” she said, gently.

Derek glared at her. He didn’t need her to soothe him. He needed to know that Stiles was going to start living his life again. He wanted more friends. Friends who didn’t call him a brat to his face or try to placate him when he wasn’t angry or upset.

“The wheels might stick,” Melissa said.

Oh. Derek hadn’t thought of that. Well, until his legs were used to being legs again, Stiles would have to stay inside. “Thank you.”

She patted his arm. “Thank you. Lady Kali says that Mieczysław has been better behaved for her lately. Perhaps your influence on him can be continued?”

“If you let him outside, yes.” Derek liked the library, but overall, he found the house stuffy, lacking in kindness.

He much preferred outside with the hidden garden that he so wanted to see.

And if Stiles could come too, all the better.

~ * ~

After breakfast, Derek went outside. He’d found a trowel and a larger spade and took both tools to the door in the ivy.

The robin was back, perched on the top of the wall. It watched him with interest as he scraped mud aside, digging little holes in a half-circle in front of the door.

It chirped constantly, and Derek found himself responding to it as if it were truly speaking.

“I’ve looked here,” he told it, stabbing the trowel in. He hadn’t started using the spade yet because he didn’t want to be stopped, and if he turned over large patches of dirt, then the gardener might investigate what he was doing.

The robin chirped brightly before disappearing down into the garden. Derek stared wistfully after it.

A moment later, it had returned, something dangling from its beak.

It landed at the farthest hole and dropped the thing down into the earth.

Derek stood up, hand clenched around his trowel, moving slowly so as not to spook it completely away.

The robin hopped aside, just out of reach, while Derek knelt in front of the hole.

There, a rusted key sat in the muddy hole.

He picked it up.

“Thank you,” he told the robin. The key was so rusted that he was half-afraid it would snap in the keyhole when he brushed aside the ivy and wriggled it into the slot.

He held his breath as he turned it slowly.

A heavy clunk sounded and the door creaked inward.

When Derek poked his head around it, he was dutifully impressed.

It was early April. Very few flowers would be blooming at this time. There were beds waiting for flowers. The garden wasn’t very large, but it was set up nicely. There was a bench hung from a large tree. Hidden under long grass was a path that wove through the raised beds, seven in all.

Derek stepped fully into the garden and leaned against the gate to close it. He fitted the key in the lock and turned it.

Now he was locked in. He slipped the key into his pocket and went to the first bed. There was a layer of leaves choking out everything else. He scraped away some of them, excited to see fresh growth underneath it.

He knew nothing of plants but felt optimistic that the library had books on cultivation. If all the beds had plants like these, he would need to do very little at first to get it looking nice.

Of course, the tall grass would need to be clipped back so that the path could be walked, and later, so that Stiles could use his wheeled chair out here too.

The fresh air was certain to do wonders for his body as well.

The trees all looked dead, and Derek didn’t know what to do about that. The robin chirped from the top of the wall, and Derek heard the gardener approaching the gate. He moved to the side, so that even if the ivy were moved, he would not be visible through the spaces between the slats.

The gardener grumbled about the holes Derek had dug and about the spade he’d left outside. He filled in the holes, which Derek would have done later, and took the spade back to his shed.

As soon as he was gone, Derek raced to the swing. He pushed it lightly, and it moved easily. The branch it was on held steady, so maybe the tree would be all right.

A few more warm days and he should be able to see leaves starting to bud.

The garden was going to be amazing. It was perfect already, but there was a lot of work to be done before he could bring Stiles here.

He could, however, bring Scott.

He almost wished he were here now so that he could experience the garden with Derek. But it was probably just as well. If they spoke aloud, they would likely be discovered.

It was better this way.

Besides, he could begin clearing away the leaves so that the green below could grow faster, and that way he and Scott wouldn’t have as much to do later.

Derek set to work, stopping only when his fingers became so cold they hurt and his stomach roared with hunger.

Then, he set the trowel on the bench, unlocked the gate, and locked it again behind himself.

He should find some oil for the hinges, to keep it from giving him away with its creaking and to ease its passage so he wouldn’t have to push so hard to move it.

He hurried inside to hide the key and wash the mud and muck from his hands before Melissa could remind him.

~ * ~

Scott arrived after lunch, a trio of little kids following along after him. Aside from the fact that there weren’t as many children, Derek was distinctly reminded of his time with the doctor after his family had died.

Scott had also brought the orange kitten, and he thrust it into Derek’s arms before he began introductions.

There was a little boy with a cherubic face and the meanest eyes Derek had ever seen. His name was Isaac, and Scott whispered that he liked to pull hair. The next was a boy, a little on the thin side with kind eyes and a face set in a blank mask.

“Boyd,” Scott said. “My mother adopted all these children after their families couldn’t care for them.

The last child, a girl, blonde hair and brown eyes and a smile so sharp Derek was surprised she didn’t actually have sharpened teeth, stuck her hand out. “Erica,” she said.

“Erica has epilepsy,” Scott explained. “We are not to tire her out.”

Erica stamped her foot. “You never tell Lydia that she can’t tire me out,” she complained.

“Lydia only reads to you.”

Derek did not want to take the children to the garden. For one, they would not be able to remain silent for very long and they would be discovered. And for another, Derek didn’t relish playing with them at all.

They were all so small! He had never been that small. He hugged the cat to his chest and turned to lead them to the library.

He was worried that they might tear it apart, but he knew of no other place they could go aside from his room, and there was precious little in there to keep them occupied.

Immediately upon reaching the library, Isaac grabbed a fistful of Erica’s hair and yanked as hard as he could. When she began wailing, Boyd chased Isaac away, and Scott knelt by her trying to calm her.

Nothing seemed to be working, so Derek surrendered his cat and contented himself with piling all the pillows and cushions in the middle of the floor. All the children stopped and stared at him, but Derek was determined.

If they had fun, they could not be destructive. He was already anticipating being called a brat for this, but he could at least put the room to rights after.

He wanted to draw Scott off to the side and speak with him about the garden, but he also did not want to share Scott with his siblings.

He understood then, what Stiles must have felt when he realized that Derek had no desire to be his best friend nor give up his own best friend.

Perhaps he could bring Stiles to the library? Surely the appearance of the oft-thought dead Lord’s son would make the children behave?

But Derek truly did not want to subject Stiles to them nor them to Stiles, certain that tantrums of monstrous proportions would occur should they meet.

Isaac jumped into the pile of pillows before Derek had finished constructing a place for them to hide under. Disgusted, he threw down the pillow he was holding and stalked away to find somewhere to be alone.

He crawled under his favorite desk, pulled out his favorite book that he kept stashed in this nook, and began reading.

A few minutes later, there was a gentle tug at his sleeve.

It was Boyd.

“Will you read to me?” he asked, softly. “Isaac despises books of all shapes and size and Erica is read to so often that she despises it when she isn’t at home.”

“And you?” Derek asked.

Boyd shrugged at him. “I would read if I could. My family was not allowed to be in school. They were run off their home by some of our neighbors.”

“And they left you behind?” Derek frowned. Why would anyone chase another family away? And why would a family leave their child behind if they could help it?

Boyd shrugged again, but his lowered his head. He was crying. Derek moved to put an arm around him. “What story would you like me to read?” he asked.

Boyd tapped Derek’s book. “Any,” he said, through his tears.

Derek spread his legs out, let Boyd climb in his lap, and he began reading to him.

Hours passed and they finished the book, but Boyd was asleep, and Derek didn’t want to dislodge him. He vowed also to find his uncle and demand he help Boyd’s family. They should not have been chased away and Boyd shouldn’t have been left behind.

It was a cruel and unfair world.

Scott found them and gently roused Boyd until he could get him to walk to where Isaac and Erica were both laid out in the middle of Derek’s pile of pillows.

“My mother will help carry them out to the cart. Do you want help putting things to right?”

Derek, tired as he was, shook his head. “It was my mess to make, it’s mine to clean.”

Scott looked conflicted, but his mother and Alan approached quickly, Alan lifting Boyd, Melissa taking Erica, and Scott with Isaac on his back.

“Thank you, Derek,” Melissa said when she noticed him sorting the pillows and carrying one back to where it belonged.

Derek didn’t bother to respond. They needed to get the children home, and he had to put away all the pillows before one of the other servants came along and spouted more hurtful names at him.

By the time he was done, it was time for supper, time for his weekly bath, and then bed.

Exhausted, Derek trudged from one task to the next and then somehow found himself tucked in bed, a cup of warm milk by his side.

He closed his eyes and let himself drift off to sleep, hoping that the next day he would see Stiles again.

~ * ~

Derek woke up in the middle of the night to Stiles’ wailing. He jumped from his bed and ran, forgoing even a candle to light his way.

He found the door to the south wing wide open and stumbling from it, his uncle.

John spotted him and grabbed him about the shoulders.

“What are you doing out of bed?” he demanded. His breath stank of something Derek didn’t know, his sweat sour. He smelled of sick.

Derek shook him off. “I am going to talk to my cousin,” he said, in a voice far braver than he truly felt.

He waited for a reprimand or a blow, and when neither occurred, he stepped around his uncle and started down the hall.

Stiles was sitting in bed when Derek slipped into his room. His wails, which Derek had thought were for pain, were already slowing by the time he peeked through his finger and saw Derek climbing onto his bed.

The room smelled of the same illness that clung to Stiles’ father. Derek guessed, then, that Lord Stilinski had returned and had come to see his son.

“Are you injured?” Derek asked, when it became clear that Stiles was not going to speak.

He shook his head.

“Did your father do something?”

Again, a head shake.

“Then why do you cry as if you are hurt?”

Stiles dropped his hands. His cheeks were wet with tears but there was determination burning in his eyes. “Because the man that was here was not my father. My father doesn’t stink of drink and vomit at the sight of me. In fact, my father doesn’t come to visit me.”

“Why would he come now?” Derek asked. “I’m sure he’s been in the house before when you cried. Why was tonight different?”

“I only cried when he came,” Stiles said. He reached a hand to Derek and pulled him close. “I don’t know if my father drinks much anymore. Or if tonight he decided to overindulge. And perhaps that is why he is gone so often, so that he doesn’t. I just know that when I awakened, he was leaning over me, studying me as if I were nothing but an interesting insect, ready for camphor and a pin. When I asked him if he had come to see me, he stumbled away and vomited by the door.”

Derek tangled his fingers with Stiles’. “Is that what was wrong with him?” he wondered out loud. “I didn’t recognize the smells on him.”

“It’s whiskey,” Stiles revealed. “My father used to drink a tumbler-full whenever my grandfather visited. I hated the smell. And the taste is even worse.”

“What does it mean if he smells so strongly of it, you can smell it on him?”

“It means he doesn’t care anymore.” Stiles shook their joined hands. “Tell me another story. I wish to think of things more pleasant than my father’s drinking.”

Derek thought for a moment, and then drew in a breath to begin. He told a story of a young boy torn from his family’s loving arms. He had landed into a caring family, but he still needed help returning to his family. And for his family to be restored.

“And who will restore them?” Stiles asked when Derek had thought him to be asleep already. “Who will help the boy return to his family?”

“The prince,” Derek said without hesitation. “The prince learns of the boy’s misfortune and takes it upon himself to fix the injustices done.”

“And am I the prince?” Stiles asked quieter.

And quieter still, Derek answered, “Yes.”

“Then I shall do everything in my power that his family is returned,” Stiles promised. “Now, will you sleep here or do you wish to return to your room?”

Derek could still smell the lingering stench of his uncle’s sick. “What if,” he said timidly, “you came to my room, and you spent the night with me?”

Wordlessly, Stiles rose, tugging Derek by their joined hands, padding down the hall until they came to the door that separated the south wing from the rest of the house.

Derek took charge then, leading Stiles to his own room, helping him climb on the bed and tucking them both in.

Once they were settled, Stiles took Derek’s hand again. “I am glad that you came here, Derek Hale,” he said. “And I am glad that you are not truly my cousin for I do not think I could love another as I love you.”

Derek was confused, thinking that Stiles was referring to being best friends again. When Stiles leaned in close and tried to press their mouths together, Derek pushed him back gently.

“It’s not love like that,” he explained to his crestfallen cousin. “At least, I don’t think it is. We’re eleven. What do we know about love?”

“Love is telling me that I am not ill,” Stiles said.

“But that’s just common sense,” Derek argued.

“Love is visiting me at night during a storm and staying to comfort me,” Stiles continued.

“Would not anyone with a heart do the same?” Derek said, with less heat.

“Love is finding me crying for the father I’ve already lost, seeing that my room is a mess, and taking me to his own room.”

“So it is love,” Derek conceded. “But I still think we are too young to know if it will last long enough to become that kind of love.”

“We are friends,” Stiles declared. “And we love each other. There is nothing else to know.”

“Will you truly help with bringing Boyd’s family back?” Derek asked.

Stiles drew Derek’s hand to his lips, pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “I will.”

Derek patted Stiles’ hand. “Then let’s sleep now.”

It did not take long for Stiles to go to sleep, and as soon as his breathing slowed and stayed slowed, Derek extricated himself from the bed and from Stiles’ lax grip. Then he hurried back into the south wing, heading deeper than he’d been before.

He checked every door, finding most of them locked or empty, until he came to the end of the hall. The second to last room he checked was a study. It was clean and there were stacks of papers on the desk, but aside from that it looked unused.

Derek turned to the last door. He tried the handle and it opened easily.

Almost immediately he was struck by the horrid stench of sour sweat and sick. And under that, the bitterness of whiskey.

There, slumped over the bed, his boots still on, was the lord of the house.

Derek stole around the bed, wincing when he noticed that his uncle had fallen asleep in a puddle of his own vomit.

That would not be pleasant to wake to.

Derek poked his shoulder.

No response.

He poked harder and got no more of a response.

A quick glance about the room showed that the same care taken to clean the study had been taken here too but other than that, it was cold, austere, empty even though there was a body on the bed.

Derek noticed a sheet hung on the wall. With a curious tug, he lowered it.

At first, he thought someone had painted Stiles and himself together, grown up, but then he realized he was looking a portrait of his mother and her best friend. Stiles looked almost exactly like his mother, and Derek, what Derek could remember of his mother, looked exactly like his mother.

From the bed came a roar that startled Derek badly enough that he dropped the sheet and turned, ready to defend himself.

It was just his uncle, raised up on his elbows, staring at the portrait. He seemed saddened as he studied it. And then his unfocused gaze drifted onto Derek.

“You!” he cried, stabbing an accusing finger in Derek’s direction. “You tramp! Put it back! You have no right! _No right!_ Why did you come here? To remind me of all I’ve lost?” He grabbed a pitcher from the table near the bed and chucked it in Derek’s direction.

It smashed against the wall mere feet from his head. Derek didn’t move.

His uncle narrowed his eyes. “Bastard child,” he spit, heaving himself up. “I knew you would come back to take what’s mine.”

Derek moved then, running around the bed and dodging between his uncle’s legs. The man was still unsteady from his drink and he nearly fell when he spun about, reaching for Derek.

Derek was too quick, light on his feet.

He raced into the hall, heading back toward the foyer. Lumbering after him, his uncle stumbled along, swearing and spitting curses at Derek’s back.

Where were the servants? They were usually about when Stiles was having a tantrum. Where were they now?

Derek didn’t want to lead his uncle to Stiles in this state, so he ducked into the library, scuttling into one of the harder to reach nooks. He hunkered down, pressing his hand over his mouth to quiet his breathing.

John entered the library, blinking blearily into the pale light afforded from a nearly-full moon.

“Where are you, boy?” he called. “Come here. I won’t hurt you. I just want to talk.”

Derek didn’t trust him. the sound of the pitcher shattering by his head was still replaying in his mind. He didn’t know what Uncle John would do if he caught him, but surely it would not be nice.

John made his way around the room, looking under desks and behind chairs. When he couldn’t find Derek, he sank down into a chair, set his head down on a desk, and sobbed once.

“Claudia,” he wailed. “Claudia, please help me.”

A few moments later, he lifted his head, stared at the wall where the crest of the Stilinskis was hung.

“What have I done?” he asked. And then he slumped forward.

Derek waited, unsure if he was just sleeping or if he had died.

He didn’t want him to be dead because that would mean that Stiles would have lost his father as well as his mother, but he selfishly also wished that maybe John wouldn’t remember this night.

Derek had no wish to be turned out on his ear because his uncle remembered that he had uncovered the portrait of their mothers.

Lady Kali entered the library nearly half an hour past when John had slumped. She checked him quickly before motioning more servants into the room.

They lifted him onto a trolley and wheeled him away.

When the doors shut, there was one figure left.

Alan.

“You’re safe now, Derek,” he called softly. “Please come out. I shall return you to your room.”

Derek didn’t trust him either, but he hadn’t thrown a pitcher at him nor had he chased him here, so he carefully unfolded himself and slid down the ladder nearest his hiding place.

Alan opened his arms, and it was the first time Derek had been offered such a show of comfort that he ran into them, let Alan pick him up and carry him to his room.

If Alan was surprised to find Stiles in Derek’s bed, he said nothing of it. Instead, he set Derek down.

“I am sorry for what you’ve both seen and heard,” he said. “I shall return in the morning to check on you.”

Then he left, locking the door behind him.

“Are you all right?” Stiles asked Derek. His voice was wavering and when Derek touched his face, it was wet.

“I am fine,” he lied. He could still hear the words his uncle had called him, and he hadn’t been quiet; Stiles had heard them too.

They both knew Derek wasn’t welcome here. And if the lord remembered anything, it was likely Derek would be sent away.

He had a few borrowed pieces of clothing and some books he would sneak with him, but Derek had nothing he could call his own. Not even the key hidden beneath his mattress.

Derek climbed off the bed and pulled it out. Then he climbed back up and pressed it into Stiles’ hand.

“This is the key to the garden,” he said. “I think it must have been your mother’s from the way it was locked away and the key tossed inside to rust away. If I am to be sent away, I don’t want to take that from you too.”

“I won’t let him send you away!” Stiles clung to him tightly. “I want to share the garden with you. I don’t want a bitter old man to drive you from me. I won’t lose you like you’ve lost your family and I’ve lost mine. Derek, we are more than cousins.”

Derek bit back his irritation. He wasn’t in love with Stiles, and Stiles wasn’t in love with him. They _were_ cousins, albeit, not related by blood.

“If I am not sent away, I shall take you out there tomorrow,” he promised. He knew it would still be muddy. It was still spring, after all. But surely the wheeled chair would be here, and Derek was strong enough to push the chair should it get stuck in the mud. He hoped Scott would come tomorrow too. And if he brought the little ones, all the better. Stiles could meet Boyd.

Derek didn’t care if they were heard out there. Not if he was to be sent away anyway.

Stiles pulled the covers over them and laid them both down again. “Let me tell you a story this time,” he said. “Once upon a time, there were two little girls who loved each other more than life itself. Their names were Claudia and Talia.”

Derek let the story of their mothers and their adventures sweep over him, soothing his hurt and scared soul, until sleep slipped up on him and dragged him down.

~ * ~

Derek woke when Melissa brought a tray into his room. It was laden with enough food for more than one person, and indeed, on her heels, Scott came into the room, pushing the wheeled chair.

“Scott!” Derek forgot for a moment to be afraid that his uncle had chased him last night and likely would send him away before too long. He clambered off the bed to hug Scott.

“This is Stiles,” he said, pointing to his cousin still on the bed.

“Lord Mieczysław,” Scott returned, bowing slightly.

“Stiles is fine,” Stiles said, his voice funny.

Derek rolled his eyes. “We are all friends,” he declared, selecting a slice of toast from the tray. “Thank you, Miss Melissa.”

Emptily Stiles echoed the sentiment while Scott hugged his mother goodbye.

“Shall we go out to the garden today?” Scott asked, helping himself to a small bowl of porridge.

After a few minutes, Stiles nodded and began eating his own porridge. “Derek gave me a key last night. He says it’s to the garden.”

“I believe him,” Scott said. “Derek has proven to be a very good friend.”

“Where are your siblings?” Derek asked.

“My mother’s sister is visiting, and she agreed to watch them for us. I thought it would be good. The Lord is in the house today, my mother says. If I’d brought them, they wouldn’t have been able to remain silent enough.”

“I’d have thought the lord would have left,” Stiles murmured. “He usually does after a grievous offense.”

Scott raised an eyebrow.

“He chased me last night,” Derek said. He was no longer hungry and set his toast down, wiping the crumbs from his hands.

“He also called you the most horrid things I’ve ever heard,” Stiles added. “I thought he might hurt you. He’d sounded so mad.”

“He was.” Derek refused to say anything else, and shortly, they were all dressed, Stiles in some of Derek’s clothes, and headed outside, Scott pushing Stiles in the wheeled chair. Stiles had given Derek the key again, and he clutched it a little desperately.

The robin was watching as they came up to the ivy. It chirped and flew into the garden. Derek pointed at it. “The robin helped me get the key,” he said. “Dropped it right into one of the holes I was digging.”

He unlocked the door, pushing it open as quickly as the rusted hinges let him.

Then he came back and helped Scott guide the wheeled chair in.

Stiles gasped at the garden. Even Scott paused, just breathing.

“It’s beautiful!” Stiles exclaimed. “Oh, is this truly my mother’s garden?”

Derek walked to the bed he’d uncovered two days past. The growth was much better now, and he could see a few buds on the stalks. He went to the next bed and dug away as much of the loamy covering as he could to expose more green stalks to the sun.

Scott pushed Stiles to the swing, helped him transfer to it, and then began digging in the bed next to it.

“Even if my father decides to send you away,” Stiles said, “I shall fight him. I’m already going to be bringing Boyd’s family back. I can fight for you too, Derek.”

Scott paused in his work. “You’re going to bring Boyd’s family back?” he asked, a little suspiciously. He shot an unreadable look to Derek.

“Yes!” Stiles enthused. “I shall bring them back and give them everything they shall ever need. There was no reason for them to be driven away.”

“And how do you plan to do that? If your father disagrees, then they shall stay gone.”

Stiles looked to Scott with determination. “I will make him see reason. He _will_ understand the importance of this.”

Derek stood up. “But what if he doesn’t?”

Stiles looked to Derek, as if he were shocked that Derek would question him. “I will make him,” he repeated. “And if he doesn’t, then I shall disown him.”

“He’s already practically disowned you already,” Derek said, a little bitterly. “What makes you think that threat would work?”

“Because it would,” a voice said from behind him. He whipped around, staring as his uncle John walked across the path.

Derek moved away as he got closer. Uncle John didn’t spare him a glance, too busy staring at his son.

“I’ve almost lost you,” he said roughly. “Hell, I probably did after last night.” And then he looked to Derek, a haunted tint to his visage. “I am so sorry. I was drunk, but that’s just an excuse. I said things that I never meant to. I may have thought them at some point but that doesn’t make them true, and I am sorry. I will do my best to make amends with you.”

“Are you going to send him away?” Stiles demanded. “Are you going to bring back Boyd’s family and give them their son again?”

“What? What happened to the Boyds?”

Scott put his hands on his hips, staring down John with far more courage than Derek realized they all had. “They were driven from their land about seven months ago. Their son was left behind.”

“They should be taught to read,” Derek added. “He said their neighbors chased them away and that they were not allowed to go to school.”

“Has this been happening on my land?” John clapped a hand over his face. “Oh, I’ve been such a terrible lord! I don’t deserve anyone’s kindness.”

Stiles stepped off the swing. He wavered a little, but waved off Scott, and stepped up to his father. “If you stop drinking,” he said, “and bring back the Boyds and swear to do better, we will all think about forgiving you.”

John wrapped his arms around his son. “I will begin immediately.”

“And you must never call Derek a bad name ever again.”

“I promise.” Guilt was written all over John’s face when he looked at Derek. “I’ve been a terrible father and a horrible uncle.”

“Yes you have,” Stiles said. “I would advise Derek to never forgive you for what you’ve done to him.”

“Why have you changed now?” Derek asked.

“A valid question,” John said. He sighed, helping his son onto the swing again. He sat next to him, head in his hands for a few minutes before he straightened. “I was lost in grief after my wife died. Both she and my son were struck by illness. When she died and Mieczysław survived, I was so mad at fate that I allowed myself to believe that both had perished. It was far easier to go on my trips around the lands, to survey, and make myself available to my subjects elsewhere than it was to look at the child that resembled the love of my life every day and know that his mother was no more.”

“Your people here suffered for it,” Scott said.

“Yes, and for that, I do not know if there is anything I can do to truly erase what a horrible lord I’ve been. I know words cannot express how sorry I am for the damage I have caused.” He sighed again, holding his hand out to Derek. Hesitantly, Derek took it, not expecting to be pulled into a tight hug. “My treatment of you is inexcusable, and I shall do everything in my power to make it right.”

“Why did you call him those names?” Stiles asked. “My mother loved his mother.”

“All I see when I look at him is Talia. And Talia was taken from my wife by her husband. Or at least, that was how I heard it. When he turned up on my step, I thought they’d sent him to live with us because of Talia’s memories with Claudia. I hadn’t realized then that his whole family had died from illness. I was informed of my grave mistake this morning when I awakened to a roomful of disappointed people who told me in no uncertain terms that I was no longer their lord.

“Now I shall do everything I my power to right my wrongs. Starting with all of you.”

Derek stepped back, standing next to Scott, watching as John hugged his son. It did not feel as if the world was right, and Derek still worried that John would change his mind and send him away, but he found that Scott seemed pleased with the display.

He could always use Stiles’ threat to disown his father if John stopped working toward being a better lord.

For now, though, Derek walked away from them, sat down in a corner. The robin perched on the wall above him and chirped. Derek just watched it, feeling nothing. No relief, no hope, no love.

He closed his eyes, trying to let the warmth of the sun wash away the sounds of a pitcher shattering next to his head, of the words hurled at him by his uncle, of the absolute silence of his home that had told him long before the doctor found him that something was wrong.

And when that didn’t work, he stood up, walked back to his uncle and cousin and hugged them again.

He didn’t know what the future held for him but he hoped that he could learn to trust and love as everyone around him seemed able to do. Most of all, he hoped that he could learn to accept love as well.

~ * ~

After nearly three hours out in the garden, Derek was more than ready to return to his room for lunch. His unfinished slice of toast could only fuel him so long, and he was definitely dragging his feet by the time the Stilinskis stood from the swing. Stiles leaned on his father and they began walking toward the gate. Derek grabbed the wheeled chair and began pushing it after them, Scott walking next to him.

“You don’t have to forgive him,” Scott said when he and Derek locked the gate. “Just because he has promised change does not mean he did not hurt you.” Scott took Derek’s hand, squeezed it, and then dropped it. “He’s hurt you with more than words. You are not angry nor wrong to be upset with him for it.”

“He threw something at me,” Derek said. “If he were not drunk, I think he might not have missed.”

Scott stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. When Derek turned to look at him, he was embraced. “You deserve love, Derek Hale,” he said fiercely. “Never let anyone tell you different. The Stilinskis may be the lords, but they have a moral compass now, and that is you, Derek.”

“Even if I’m just that Hale brat?” Derek asked, thinking bitterly of the servants who had no cause to be upset with him, but saw that their lord was not pleased with the addition to his household and had hated him on sight.

“You’ve been through things you shouldn’t have held against you, and I am sorry that they were. I am also sorry that it appears you were deemed a burden when you’re nothing but.” Conspiratorially, he leaned closer. “If you feel unsure of living with the Stilinskis, you are most welcome to live with us. My mother never has a bad word to say about you. She loves you dearly, and you deserve to feel that love.”

“Thank you,” Derek said. “I will keep that in mind.”

In one way, it was a relief to have Scott offer his home because it meant that they were truly friends and that someone loved him for himself, but he also knew that he would likely make Melissa’s life a lot harder. There didn’t seem to be a Mister Melissa, and Scott was too young to do much more than be an apprentice. Another mouth to feed would be a burden, and there was no way Derek was going to hurt Scott’s family like that.

“Are you boys coming?” Lord Stilinski called back to them. He had picked up Stiles and now carried him, legs over one arm, the other securely around his shoulders.

Scott pushed the wheeled chair to them, and John arranged Stiles in the seat.

“We are going to discuss how best to bring Boyd’s family back,” Stiles chirped, reaching for Derek’s hand, lacing their fingers together. They walked slowly as John pushed the chair while Stiles chattered about how wonderful it felt to be outside and how nice the garden was going to look.

Derek studied him. He did seem much improved. His cheeks were ruddy as was the tips of his nose and ears. He gestured wildly as he talked, swinging Derek’s hand with his.

It was perhaps very selfish of Derek, but he wished that if John were to revert to his drunken mean self, he would at least leave Stiles alone.

Stiles had lost his mother. He didn’t deserve to lose his father too.

Derek had already suffered the loss of his family, news of his father’s death coming to him at the doctor’s house. He knew he was likely to always be treated as a harbinger of ill news, but he did not wish for those around him to be affected by it.

“Stop thinking,” Stiles suddenly commanded. He tugged at Derek’s hand as if there was any doubt as to whom he was ordering. “I can almost smell the burn of oil as your mind works. Stop it. Tell me why you are thinking such painful thoughts?”

“I know why,” John said. He let go of the chair’s handles and moved quickly. Before Derek quite knew what was happening, he was lifted into a strong embrace. “I am so sorry for the sorrow you’ve suffered, and doubly for my part in it. You are wanted, child, you always were. You will not be turned out no matter how you think you may have done something to deserve it. You never will have. And those that cannot or will not see your worth will have no place in my lands. Never again shall you be hurt as you were last night.”

John held on as if it were Derek who was letting go, and with wonder, Derek pressed his ear against his uncle’s chest, listening to his heart beat steady beneath his jacket and shirt.

Perhaps he truly was wanted. Perhaps he wouldn’t be turned away. And perhaps they could go in for some lunch now, Derek’s stomach growling rather loudly.

John set him on his feet but kept a hand on his shoulder. Instead of feeling restricted as he might have without his uncle’s promises, Derek relished in the warmth of it. Scott took the other handle and as one they entered the foyer.

Dirty, tired, a little windblown, but definitely different from when they had gone out.

Derek thought he could get used to this. Certainly it was no worse than before. And now he knew, or thought he knew, that his uncle loved him as did his cousin. He wouldn’t be turned out, he wouldn’t have to be a burden on Melissa and Scott and his siblings, and John would begin to care for his land as he hadn’t since Claudia had died.

Unbidden, a thought came to him, and shyly, he leaned closer to Stiles. “I would like to plant silver bells in the garden. They were my mother’s favorites.”

“Yes,” Stiles said without hesitation. “Silver bells and cockle shells. For the times our mothers spent at the beach in their youth. For the times we shall spend together as well. Splendid idea, Derek.”

Warmth spread from Stiles’ words, and head held high, Derek led them deeper into the house.

~ The End ~

**Author's Note:**

> Tags are just for the things I remember. I'm sure I've forgotten a few. Go ahead and suggest any you think I missed.
> 
> Come visit me at [my Tumblr](https://1989dreamer.tumblr.com)!


End file.
